Influence of Building Envelope’s Solar Reflectivity, Wind Speed and Building Coverage Ratio on Urban Heat Environment

In recent years, especially, the climate change (CC) and urban heat island (UHI) effects are becoming serious problems, affecting people’s life and health, especially in hot summer. For large cities such as Tokyo or Osaka in Japan, the UHI effect is particularly intense. It is known that about 40% of urban anthropogenic heat comes from buildings in large cities. To reduce the anthropogenic heat from buildings is an important countermeasure to this problem.  

Effect of ventilation on indoor thermal comfort.

Adequate ventilation and good air quality are essential for the comfort of occupants and productivity. Excessive ventilation however, may result in discomfort and high energy loss. A study was carried out to examine the influence of ventilation on indoor thermal conditions. The results show that ventilation has profound effect on lowering the indoor temperature, particularly the night time ventilation. Derived PMV is compared with actual votes (thermal sensation) and found that PMV is lower than actual votes.